Mahesh Joshi on H.I.T. Investing: Building Profitable & Impactful Startups

In this episode of the Prime Venture Partners Podcast, Sanjay Swamy hosts Mahesh Joshi, Head of Asia Private Equity at BlueOrchard and author of H.I.T. Investing.

He shares powerful insights on how companies across India and Asia are solving critical problems like:

• Financial inclusion for underserved Kirana stores
• Gender equity in small business finance
• Climate resilience through tech and EV adoption
• Leveraging UPI, DPI, and IndiaStack to scale affordable services

📌 Key themes:

• What HIT investing really means (High Impact + Tech)
• Why India is the perfect testbed for scalable impact
• How founders with deep domain knowledge are creating billion-dollar    outcomes
• ESG vs HIT: The execution gap

📌 Episode Timestamps:

00:00 – Introduction
00:56 – What is HIT Investing?
04:32 – Understanding Impact Investing
10:24 – Financial Services in India
13:45 – India as a hub for HIT startups
16:12 – Common misconceptions about impact investing
20:35 – Traits of founders who succeed in impact investing
28:40 – Global learnings applied to the Indian market
32:07 – Financial services growth & untapped opportunities
36:20 – Sectors primed for HIT innovation
42:12 – What Mahesh does for fun
43:55 – Closing thoughts

📣 Whether you're a startup founder, investor, or policy watcher — this is an essential conversation on the future of purposeful capitalism.